Backstage
by Xelias
Summary: Because Yeshua, too, has his moments where he recognizes himself as beyond humanity--beyond conflict, difference. Beyond hurt. // wilhelm x chaos. pregame. slash. mature audiences, please.


**Backstage**  


* * *

They haven't spoken in seventeen years. Before that, thirty-two. Before that, twenty-six. These last millennia have nurtured a certain jeopardy in their contact with one another, such that Wilhelm looks long and deep at chaos in the wake of his arrival and only waits in silence for the terms of this particular event to be set. To Yeshua, Wilhelm offers nothing less than the luxury of defining their relationship from day to day. It isn't quite a conciliatory gesture; he feels no particular impulse or desire to make up for whatever may have occurred in the past, no. It isn't that. Yeshua will simply speak or not speak, remain still or step forward, and from there Wilhelm will know how to proceed.

Given certain precursory factors, all things are determinable. Yeshua did not come to speak of ideological divergences or the limited morality that belongs to human beings, or of necessity. His purpose is smaller and finer than that. Wilhelm possesses a considerable respect for finer things and so he says nothing right back--nothing until chaos advances until only the desk separates them in physical space and gazes straight into the heart of Wilhelm, if there is such a thing.

From that gaze, Wilhelm understands all that he needs to. Because Yeshua, too, has his moments where he recognizes himself as beyond humanity--beyond conflict, difference. Beyond hurt. There is a certain longing in Yeshua _(for a time long ago when he could have come without waging a battle in his own mind), _eager to be reminded of the perpetuity of the ties that bind them. Wilhelm understands this in particular; in her absence, Yeshua is the sole true constant in his existence. Wilhelm will never deny what a precious thing this is.

Yeshua _(it's been chaos for some time now, but Wilhelm is perhaps more a creature of habit than Yeshua is.) _is beyond hurt.

"Wilhelm…"

"Hello, Yeshua. It's been some time." Wilhelm rises from his chair and moves fluidly to the door beside them. "Come with me."

The Federation Executive Committee Director's private quarters have an austere elegance about them no matter who's serving, but Wilhelm had been quick to tailor them to better suit his own tastes when he took office. On the table nearest the bed sits a gramophone so old it rightfully shouldn't exist. chaos considers it for a few moments. There are surely more practical locations for it to stay than on the bedside table, but then this bed has seen considerably little use up to this point in Director Wilhelm's term.

This, too, changes.

Wilhelm watches as he disrobes: buckles and hooks clink musically in the otherwise still room, fabric rustles, zippers zip, and he has to _peel_ the last dark layer of clothing off his skin before it's finally over with. Then he studies Wilhelm as he did the gramophone, at home in his nakedness, from his place at the middle of the antique area rug. His bared limbs prickle in the chilly air, each tiny hair standing on end.

Yeshua _(so unlike them and yet so bound to that same frail human physicality in ways that Wilhelm isn't, never has been, and never will be) _is such a fascinating being. Wilhelm suspects he will never tire of him. Of this.

"Shall I help you become more comfortable somehow?" Wilhelm asks, amused at the perfunctory quality the words have. chaos responds with an expression that is half humor and half chagrin, then shakes his head a bit.

After a pause he continues, gaze averted. "It wasn't really comfortable that I was looking for."

A darkly knowing smile spreads over Wilhelm's features.

"I see. Well, then, shall we begin?"

chaos's hair whispers against the burgundy coverlet when he lies back, sinking inexplicably deeper into the mattress like Wilhelm somehow carries much less weight despite the sameness of their bodies. Ever composed, ever dressed, Wilhelm looks no different than he does at any other moment. Save for the places where chaos's arm brushes against Wilhelm's stomach and their legs graze each other, they barely touch.

Yeshua's eyelashes flutter in concentration as he breathes, centering himself, and it is a thing of beauty. When Wilhelm lowers one hand and flattens it against the air just above the fine, pale hair trailing down from Yeshua's navel, it isn't because he needs to. Never a man of empty gestures, he could make this happen with the smallest willing of it--but he spares this one because he wants Yeshua to remember, after he leaves and they return to not speaking for another indeterminable length of time, that he _is _this. Yeshua's bliss. Yeshua's agony. He wants Yeshua to know that, sometimes, the pain he brings him is not just necessary, but desirable.

He wants Yeshua to know that he wants Yeshua to know.

Beginning as nothing greater than a trickle, chaos perceives a soft, sweet warmth start to pool inside his body under Wilhelm's nothing-touch, stranger and more diffuse than what he's come to expect from normal partners or his own hand. It winds tight and unwinds in a gradual, mounting cycle through his core, his hands, the soles of his feet, spine, lips, the tips of his ears. He starts to writhe on the bed sheet. But even as his breath quickens and small snatches of his voice begin to carry through, Wilhelm just looks on, almost fond in the way he effortlessly sustains the low, humming pitch of the ache that envelops all of chaos's nerves at once.

Five minutes turn to thirty.

From there, it never changes. The power that Wilhelm exerts over him is so _gentle _and constant that chaos's senses crawl up to meet it instead, charmed to life quite observably like a snake out of a basket. He arches into an invisible caress, alight with the delicious awareness that Wilhelm is _teasing _him as a sticky rivulet of precome wells up and slides slowly down the underside of his erection. It tickles; chaos exhales harshly and his hand twitches over to touch himself… but an unseen force suddenly commands his wrists to the bed and traps them there. The look that crosses his face is almost enough to provoke a chuckle from Wilhelm; after this long, chaos can just tell.

Thirty minutes become sixty.

Wilhelm stops his orgasm in its tracks the first time it starts to build. chaos whines in his throat in spite of himself and tries to shift closer, flushed now with helpless pleasure, hungry for Wilhelm's mouth the way a human wants a human's mouth. He thinks of Wilhelm's fingers, of how solid and cool they'd feel on his fevered skin, or the wet trail he'd like to lick up the middle of his back if his suit wasn't in the way. Wilhelm's smell is clean and eternal; if chaos were to kiss his neck, his inner thigh, he knows he wouldn't even taste salt. He wants Wilhelm _on _him, wants him _inside. _But really, he already is.

It's important to hold onto these thoughts. It's how he knows he's still a separate piece of this moment, his own floating little island in time and space. And when he isn't anymore, he knows that Wilhelm will push him even further.

One hour becomes many.

There's no reason for Wilhelm to dote on chaos like this. He could get up. Return to his work, leave him here to twist in desperation and sweat. But he finds that Yeshua prefers a sweeter form of cruelty, prefers Wilhelm to stay close by his side and personally stoke every ember of rapture with his own hands. To comfort and soothe him with his presence, but not enough. Never enough.

Eventually, time ceases to mean much to chaos. He groans into the temperate air around them and wishes for all the world that he were facing the other way so he might attain some _hope _of relief in rubbing wantonly against the sumptuous comforter, but he can't pinpoint whether minutes or only seconds pass before the next time Wilhelm denies his body the release it needs so _much_. The only truly observable change in their togetherness here is when Wilhelm decides to switch gears from torturous teasing to plain torture and every last cell in chaos's body novas with blinding synchronicity.

Eyes wide and unseeing, chaos chokes on his own voice and then makes a noise that sounds uncomfortably to his ears like a wail, bucking up futilely against nothing. Searing in its intensity and utterly, unremittingly steady, there is no solace from this pleasure in sight. No shelter, no _mercy, _and eventually Wilhelm leads him beyond the threshold of his own humanity and even his basest instincts lose their relevance: he stops fucking the air, body going rigid, shaking and silent. He cannot move, cannot gasp or struggle, can't cry out. He can't even breathe--he doesn't dare, it's too much, it's too much it's too much.

Wilhelm smiles placidly, at rest on one elbow over him, the hand still hovering above his belly perpetually holding his end at bay. chaos thrashes effetely, the entirety of his fragile mortal body turned to one exposed, raw nerve, heat rolling off of him in waves.

"Such energy," comments Wilhelm, bored enough that it sounds almost playful. "But there _are_ limits to even your strength. You're so very human in nature, Yeshua."

chaos can only pant for breath.

"So… delicate."

To Yeshua's flickering sight, perhaps Wilhelm is reminiscent of the reclining Buddha, still and at peace as he awaits death and his subsequent entrance into Nirvana.

Perhaps Yeshua feels at this moment that they share a common experience.

"How much longer can you hold on…?"

chaos swallows thickly around a moan, returning to himself enough for tears to rush over his temples as he heaves out a crackling sob that sounds like "_Please."_

"Are you begging, Yeshua? You're welcome to try," Wilhelm murmurs, closer now, into his hair. "But this will never end until I choose for it to end. Until then, you'll continue to suffer this glorious feeling forever. Would you prefer that, I wonder? But then, what you'd prefer doesn't particularly matter… does it?"

"_Please_, I--_" _chaos manages, barely recognizing his own voice, "_can't. I can't."_

"You can't, can you? But you will."

chaos sobs again, entreating him with his unpronounceable true name--and Wilhelm leans in so intimately, so kindly, and whispers right against chaos's ear: "come."

With that one word. it's as though Wilhelm obliterates some levee inside of him and chaos thinks he can feel the more familiar crescendo of orgasm spilling hot over his stomach before it's bolstered and dwarfed and _consumed _by something much larger than sensation, _so much larger _than the pleasure or space or time or even the self. But still, _still _chaos maintains enough presence of mind for one of his palms to collide with Wilhelm's chest as he starts to come down--aiming to redirect some of this energy through that immutable body, to give it back, to show him not just what he knows it to be but how it _feels._

The euphoria that washes over Wilhelm could destroy a normal person for a while. Blast away everything extraneous, strip them right down to the pith of what they are in one perfect, sacred instant. Wilhelm just glances at the brown fingers curling into his suit, curious, but something falters in the steadiness of his gaze.

"Are you--satisfied now? _Yeshua,_" he half-sighs, voice catching entirely independent of his will, and then he smiles a secret smile that makes chaos yearn for kissing again.

Wilhelm considers the viscous white that mars his formerly impeccable suit and spares it a resigned _tsk. _But his expression fails to match his actions as he reaches down to swipe his fingertip through one of the tiny splotches, slickly appraising the substance between it and his thumb for a second. Studying it, maybe, before stroking it lightly over chaos's flushed bottom lip.

The gesture is so inexplicably _physical _that it leads chaos to raise his head in momentary surprise, but he still grants him a soft, obedient suck. …One that threatens quite suddenly to rekindle his desire. But then he lets his eyes slip shut again, body and mind exhausted, aching everywhere. If Wilhelm finds this pleasurable, the only indication of it is in how very intently he watches Yeshua taste himself.

For several minutes, they are quiet.

"Rest with me," chaos urges gently.

Wilhelm cannot refuse. All the hardship Yeshua bears that he has accumulated over the course of humanity's history; the unfortunate but necessary pain he's brought Yeshua as they've lived out their lives beside one another; destroying that which Yeshua loved dearly for the greater good, over and over but _only _for the greater good--nothing keeps them from arriving at the same intractable truth: even in this bed, they're all they've ever been. The universe will always change its shape. But even when it transforms into something new, different, sometimes unrecognizable, Yeshua will always exist just as he is. He could never call Yeshua his enemy. Not with this link that binds them so, or the memory they share of an ancient sky, her, and the dusty Earth.

Time matters greatly to Wilhelm despite how very much of it he has. There are always matters worthier of his attention than sleep or sex or nostalgia for events they'll surely be able to live again--to live again and again and again--but still he obliges this request. It grants Yeshua the permission he desires to leave without words or deeds before the planet's orbit heralds the morning.

In ten years, Yeshua will speak.

* * *

_end._


End file.
